


Bloodlines

by Lyra33Vega



Series: The Magician's Niece [1]
Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: Discovering Long-Lost Relatives, Familial bonding, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:37:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24540154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyra33Vega/pseuds/Lyra33Vega
Summary: Wendy has always felt something… familiar about the Constant’s former king. Now that he’s easier to talk to, she and her sister are determined to find out what that something is.
Relationships: Maxwell & Wendy (Don't Starve)
Series: The Magician's Niece [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1773619
Comments: 4
Kudos: 55





	1. Chapter 1

If you ask Wendy what draws her to a man she was supposed to hate, she would have a hard time finding a solid answer. She knows others’ opinions of him, especially when they’re as forward about it as Mr. Wilson–how he was a manipulative puppet master who led many of the survivors here to a hellish no-man’s-land, only for the tables to have been turned on him and to become a pawn in his own game.

Yet despite never seeing him before the seance to bring back her sister, before landing in the Constant, there’d been something… familiar about the man calling himself the King of the Constant.

Thus while it was with reluctance that the other now-gathered survivors let him camp close to their small grouping of tents, it is through curiosity that she wanders outside the walls of the group encampment towards Maxwell’s smaller, isolated camp. More boxes than a proper living space, she can see the well-dressed man sitting almost hunched, his back to her as he leans against a boulder. He’s saying… something as she nears, the words an odd language she doesn’t know, yet before she can sneak any closer to hear them more clearly–

“Higgsbury, I’m telling you, I did _not touch_ those damned blueprints.” She flinches a bit at the sharp American accent and the clap of a book (she can’t see it from this angle, but there’s no doubt it’s the Codex Umbra) as the man starts to turn around. “So if it blew up, that’s _entirely_ your fault you twit-”

He cuts himself off once he fully turns around, surprised at seeing her there instead of the expected scientist.

“Er… ya need something kid?” Just as she thought, he’s holding the Codex, now tucked under one arm as his odd inverted eyes look her over. Not angry despite what his voice had conveyed a second ago, but… anticipating? Confused?

“Yes, I do.” She straightens out her skirt before walking over and sitting cross-legged ( _criss-cross applesauce,_ she can almost hear Abigail’s voice singing in her ear, though her sister is currently asleep) before looking up at him again. “I have a few questions I wish to ask of you, Mister Maxwell.”

The former king gives a light scoff and a shrug. “Well fire away then, though I can’t promise I’ll be able to answer. Even I don’t know everything about this place, despite what the others might-”

“Actually these questions are about _you.”_

The clarification stops him in his tracks, grand gesturing frozen as he looks at the girl sitting across from him with mild surprise.

“Put that by me again?”

“You pretend to be more than human, but you are still a person,” she speculates, “a person I know so little about, yet feel such familiarity. So who were you, before the Constant?”

The confidence-turned-confusion takes another unexpected turn into uncertainty, but she doesn’t intrude on his thoughts, instead watching the pale eyes dart about as he organizes his thoughts; apparently the question has more weight to it than she initially thought, for he has a few false starts of looking at her, opening his mouth, then closing it uncertainly. In a way it’s understandable–the most difficult thing about anything was to begin–so to help she decides to go out on a proverbial limb.

“Were you from somewhere outside America, Mister Maxwell? Maybe… British?” Pale eyes snap back to her, uncertainty taking a brief hop backwards into surprise before he gives a small sigh, the kind given by one who’s been found out.

“Bugger. What gave me away? Thought I had the accent down by now,” he admits, the Codex resting in his lap as he lightly crosses his arms.

“You do. It’s very well done,” she assures, “but your word choice is…” she pauses, trying to find a better word than ‘odd’. “… most unusual for an American. However, I’ve heard my father use words like ‘twit’ and ‘bugger’ in a similar manner to how you do.”

“This coming from an American girl?” he points out with an arched brow and Wendy blinks.

“Oh, um… yes but my father is British.” He gives a quiet hum and a subtle nod, Wendy starting to pluck at blades of grass as she continues her questions. “Or well, English he always said, since British meant… other countries as well so were you-?”

“England, yeah. Mostly London,” he answers, and she pauses for a second as she registers his voice–his ‘usual’ accent is loud and sounds almost straight from a radio, but this newer, English one is… quieter, with more of a hum in some syllables. She can tell from his awkward expression that even he isn’t fully used to hearing it, but the more he talks the more relaxed he gradually becomes. “Though my childhood was spent outside the city. Came to America to try and start a career, since my brother-”

She looks up from the blades of grass she’s braided together just as he catches himself. He’s not looking at her even as she stares, catching the worry seeping into his expression.

“You had a brother Mister Maxwell?” A pale eye glances towards her before he looks downwards, to the left.

“Hoping I _have_ a brother, but yes.” She nods (hopefully in an encouraging manner) as he continues. “Came to the States a few years before I did, married and settled down… somewhere out west I think. Dealt in bonds mostly, but mentioned something about getting into growing… either grapes or lemons, hell if I remember which.”

She nods again before asking, “Did you ever visit him?”

“Always meant to but… no, never did.” He frowns slightly, voice a touch bitter as he continues. “Minute I landed in New York I was trying to get my act off the ground.”

“‘Act?’” She places Abby’s flower next to her; it floats, but nothing more, her focus on Maxwell. “Of what sort?”

“Eh, you wouldn’t want to see it, my old act,” he insists, avoiding her eyes as his hands dive into his suit pockets. “Nothing from the Codex, that came-”

“Please?”

He finally looks at her again, and young eager eyes lock with older, nervously shifting ones. She leans forward the slightest bit, she hopes not enough to seem prying or to betray her usual somberness, but enough to convey her curiosity and… some enthusiasm.

He gives a sigh–a rather dramatic one, Wendy notes, almost reminiscent of her father when she and Abby had ‘pushed his hand’ on a matter–and one of his dark-gloved hands comes up, holding–

It takes her a moment to properly recognize the small bishop figure, one of the numerous things dug up from the several graves dotting the Constant. Her eyes follow it unblinkingly as he rolls the white piece expertly along the back of his fingers, the bishop moving from one hand to the other, rolled again and then spun and-

-She blinks once, twice, and a third time as he holds up a now-black bishop towards her. A smile threatens to creep upon her face and a moment passes before cautiously, carefully, she accepts the black figure, studying the chess piece intently.

“A most impressive show of your talents, Mister Maxwell.” Abigail would have loved to see that… perhaps she can ask him to perform a similar trick once she’s fully recovered and floating about again.

“Glad you think so,” he chuckles, a quiet noise compared to his usually dramatically loud tone and volume. “Now if only others thought the way ya do.”

“I take it your performances were not that popular then?” The question makes him look away, but that’s all the confirmation she needs.

“No. It was… rather rough, getting money in on just that. Couldn’t even get ten dollars to my name.”

“But surely the Codex would have-?”

“Nah, that came later. My brother wrote me, asking to visit him, and considering another week in New York might’ve gotten my neck broken-” a thin, gloved hand reaches to his own, a grimace growing on his face as he remembers. “-well, heading to California to see Jack was the break I needed.”

Another blink as she stares at him.

“Jack… your brother?” He looks back at her, blinking as she questions.

“Yeah. Went to see him, but-”  
This time the interruption is from the main camp; Wendy turns towards the shout with a sigh as she hears her name again, this time more clearly as–it sounds like Wilson–comes closer.

“Ah. Looks like your absence was noted.” She frowns at Maxwell’s comment but does little more than hum in light annoyance.

“It would appear so. Would you mind if I call upon you some other time? So you can finish your story.”

He gives a noncommittal shrug and a brief hum as she picks up Abby’s flower. “Doubt the others would approve but I’m not gonna stop ya.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wendy and her sister Abigail were always the persistent sort, refusing to let a mystery go until they solved it. Can they solve the mysterious familiarity behind the once-Great Maxwell?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Slight Suicide Implication on Wendy's part. Not much of a surprise considering her in-game dialogue, but still worth a warning.

_Jack._

_His brother Jack._

She stares up at the night sky as the questions start creeping in–she can hear the adults converse not too far away, background noise to the questions arising in her mind.

Abigail’s flower quietly rustling and starting to gently glow does little to stem them; if anything, her sister’s waking makes her want to give a voice to the thoughts.

“Abby? Are you awake now?” There’s silence for almost a full minute, then a quiet coo answers her.

“Did you… were you awake enough to hear… all that?” The flower trembles, then finally Abigail peeks out of it just slightly.

_Most of it_ , she answers, _but his brother’s name being-_

“There are several Jacks out there, Abby.” She’s doing her best to keep to a whisper, but the pouty expression Abigail’s giving her causes her to raise her voice a bit. “I’m not saying it still isn’t odd but…”

_But someone looking eerily like our dad and having a brother **with his name** isn’t weird? _

Wendy sighs. “Even so, that’s not… I don’t think that means he’s related to him. I don’t remember the name of Father’s brother but it wasn’t Maxwell.”

Her sister’s hum of assent has notes of reluctance, and Wendy gently pats the petals in assurance.

“I’ll see what I can learn from him next time. Maybe he’ll talk more about his brother.”

_Ask tomorrow!_

“Abby, _no_. The others will get curious!” Then angry, then not let her talk to him at all; few of the adults actually tolerate the Constant’s former ruler, most letting him stay nearby more out of pity than a willingness to work with him.

_Then be sneaky about it!_

She sighs in frustration, glaring up at the countless astral bodies above them. “I can only be so sneaky with you floating about behind me!”

 _Wow. Ouch. Painful._ Normally her sister’s sarcasm would be welcome, but with exhaustion and questions gnawing at her, it’s difficult to simply be amused. She rolls on her side to try and ignore her sister’s chanting of _Ask! Ask! Ask! Ask!_

-Except now she’s staring at the subject of the argument in the distance. The light is dim but Maxwell’s campfire is definitely lit, his features highlighted by the fire as he sits there, probably reading the Codex again.

_Wendyyy~_ She looks over her shoulder to her sister, now peeking towards the main camp fire. _Now’s your chance! They’re busy right now, think Wigfrid’s challenging the Wolf guy to something._

She wants to argue, wants to say that it wouldn’t last (mostly because she knows Wigfrid would lose to Wolfgang in less than a minute, she challenges him to arm-wrestling almost all the time) but instead she finds herself picking up Abigail’s flower, her sister having withdrawn already, and sneaking out of the camp, towards Maxwell’s.

“They’re going to notice the torches,” she hisses once she and Abby are barely within the edges of the campfire’s light, “how are we going to get there?”

 _There!_ Her sister’s arm reaches out of the floating flower to point towards a glowing spot a few feet away. _Fireflies! That oughtta work, right?_

So much for finding another way out of this… She takes a deep breath and plunges into the darkness, only releasing it once she’s bathed by the fireflies’ light-

Briefly.

_Aw crap–_ Abby pokes out of the flower, a small light in the dark, just enough to point to another cluster a few feet away. _There!_

Again Wendy darts, again there’s light, but again it only lasts for a second, and this time she doesn’t see any more ahead.

 _Keep running!_ Abby warns, though she doesn’t need to at this point; she’s running towards the camp as fast as she can, still several feet ahead. She can make it, she has to-

Up until something trips her, lashing at her leg, and she cries out in pain, curling in on herself as she lies there on the ground, Abby’s flower falling a few feet away.

 _ **WENDY!!**_ She can’t summon her sister from here, and for all her screaming Abby can’t come to her rescue without being summoned out of her flower.

She’s hurt herself, yes. She’s wanted to die, yes. But this… This isn’t a favored method of hers. Not because it’s one of the more painful ways to do so, but because it isn’t under her control. So many things are outside of it–Abby’s death, how the Constant works–but if there’s one thing she can control, it’s whether or not she dies and most times how. There’s no anxiety for when it would happen, no surprises, no real fear when done of her own volition.

Unlike now, as she simply shuts her eyes and waits for the finishing blow, hearing the night creature swoop in–

Only the creature picks her up and she’s confused. This isn’t right, it’s not killing her, it’s… Helping her up? The back of her shirt is pulled upwards, helping her stand as she opens her eyes–

And suddenly she’s staring at Maxwell.

“What in the _Hell_ are you two _doing_ out here?!” Illuminated by the torch he’s holding, harsh features even harsher thanks to the shadows cast, but she can still see the fear and worry etched into the old face. She looks down, both to pick up Abby’s flower and also embarrassed about being caught like this.

“I–I was… hunting for spiders?” she tries weakly; she can feel Abby cringe at the poor excuse from inside her flower. The former ruler’s frown deepens, arms crossing.

“With neither a spear or a torch? Your sister isn’t even out! You realize you could have died, yeah? She’s bloody merciless!”  
He doesn’t give her time to think of a new excuse or even question what he just said, instead just tugging her by the arm towards his camp.

“Come on, let me see that injury of yours. Seems rather bad.” He doesn’t let go of her arm until they’re within the fire’s glow, putting a new log on the low fire as she sits down and summons Abigail, her sister hovering over the injured girl in worry.

“I–I’m fine Mister Maxwell, it’s not that bad as it loo-”

 _Bullshit!_ Wendy turns to give her sister a look. “Language Abby!”

“Both of you stop.” He’s returned with both healing salve and spider glands. “Wendy, hold your leg out. The injured one of course.”

She looks down in resignation, straightening the wounded leg; he tuts at the gash and she can’t help but be reminded of when Father had similar reactions to Abby’s injuries. She can hear him moving lower, probably sitting next to her, and suddenly there’s the sting of the healing salve.

“So.” She looks up at his voice, and though he’s not looking at her–instead focused on patching up her leg–she can tell he’s still worried. “What were you two doing, sneaking out in the dark?”

“I–I told you, hunting-”

“What you were _actually_ doing,” he interrupts, and this time he looks up at her. The resemblance between him and her father has always been present, but now it’s impossible to ignore–brows furrowed, mouth set in a straight line save for the downward edges, and despite Maxwell being clean-shaven she can perfectly imagine a mustache on his upper lip (“like a wiggly caterpillar,” Abby had described it once when she was still alive).

_Okay fine,_ Abby asks, gliding forward slightly to look at Maxwell; the motion catches his attention, as he breaks eye contact with Wendy to look at the deceased twin. _We want to know why the HECK you look a LOT like our dad, ya wrinkled old–_

“Sorry, but I don’t speak ghostly wailing,” he deadpans, aiming a look at Abby with a raised eyebrow before turning to Wendy again. “Care to translate for her?”

“She…” The girl looks down at her leg, watching Maxwell bandage it up as she tries to find the right way to say it. “She wants to know what your brother was like.” 

Gloved hands pause their task of bandaging her leg, and she looks up to see the former magician’s odd eyes staring at her. Again she’s reminded of one of Father’s expressions, brows still furrowed but eyes–eyes that are wrong, tampered by magic– slightly widen in confusion.

“And why would she want to know that?” The question is defensive, but lightly so, the magician’s eyes looking between twins both dead and alive. She can fake an answer as easily as she had faked the question, and yet…

“Because you remind us both very much of Father.”

Eyes of the living and dead fix onto her–Abigail with shock, knowing that normally Wendy wouldn’t dare speak of secrets, let alone her own–and Maxwell with surprise, the defensive edge to his gaze curbed, and (she hopes not) pity, before he looks back down to focus on his work.

“Jack was…” A quiet chuckle escapes the man as he finishes bandaging her leg. “He was always getting into trouble when we were children. More accurately, he always got me into trouble with him. Brought a frog into the house once, almost scared the maid into an early grave.”

She can hear Abby snort in laughter next to her, and even Wendy herself can’t help a light smile–there were times in the past, before Abby grew seriously ill, when they would both pester Father for stories about his past. Telling the two girls stories was one of the few things that brought an actual smile to his face, reminiscing of possibly better times of him and Uncle–Uncle…

“You seem very fond of him… Did you stay in contact?”

“We corresponded frequently, yeah. I tried to hitch a ride west to see him, but-”

Again he cuts himself off, this time not from an interruption by another survivor but instead… Wendy looks up at his face as he draws back, the former ruler clearly thinking of how to next word things.

“Well, it just didn’t work out that way,” he finishes quietly, but Wendy has no intention of letting the story end there, especially with Abby’s protest of _WHAT?! Oh COME ON!!_

“If you fear the others learning your story,” she offers, clear blue eyes staring into Maxwell’s dark ones as her small pale hands fiddle with some grass, “I can assure you that Abby and I are exceptionally good secret-keepers. No one has to know.”

He pauses, keeping her stare for a moment, and she lets him search; she knows what he’s intensely searching her face for, knows how hard it can be to trust people. She hardly does it herself now, keeping almost everyone here at a distance even when they hold her close.

Yet he’s… already closer than any of the others; she and Abby have ideas as to why, but they aren’t certainties, just hunches, so far a bunch of coincidences. But it does nothing to quell the overwhelming familiarity about him.  
Eventually he finishes his search, standing up and walking towards one of the several chests.

 _Well, so much for that,_ Abby grouses next to her, crossing her arms as she sulks in mid-air.

“I didn’t expect him to say yes right away,” she admits in a whisper, her eyes on the man’s back. She is about to say more but sits straighter as Maxwell straightens and walks back over. Another log is added to the fire before he sits down, this time next to her rather than in front, elbows resting on his knees as he stares into the fire. Next to her, Abby is giving him a skeptical look but Wendy simply waits–he would have made it clear had he truly refused, snapping at the two girls to leave like he does anyone else who confronts him.

He wants to let the two girls in, for whatever reason, and so Wendy is willing to wait for him to prepare himself.

“It’s… hard to remember exactly what happened.” She jumps a little as he finally speaks, blinking the sleep away as she pulls out Abby’s flower, fingers lightly stroking her sister’s physical vessel to help her stay awake, stay quiet, as the former magician continues. “Don’t remember where exactly but it was… definitely not California, maybe a few states away when the… the train crashed. Only heard bits before the impact, something about a circus broken down on the tracks. When I’d come to again… everyone was gone and I was just–on the ground I think. Nothing but endless desert and-” he pauses to reach into his jacket.

“-and this.”

It’s not the first time she or Abby have seen the mysterious book, an inanimate object that everyone save for its owner seems adverse to, yet Wendy has always–and still does– find herself intrigued by it, sensing almost a similar energy to what she felt from the manual on seances that one night. Perhaps, when he was distracted, she could look at its pages and see if-

Maxwell’s voice disrupts her thoughts as he continues his story, and as she pulls her eyes away from the book in his hand she can see a chess piece in his other–a king this time, rolled and spun between darkly-gloved fingers as the deep voice continues.

“I’d managed to find another town, tried to write to him–was hoping to outrun the papers, tch, foolish on my part–but didn’t hear from him. Was a bit distracted after that anyway, as by then I’d started with my… _new material_ in the cities.” The Codex Umbra is turned towards her for light emphasis before it slips back into his jacket. “And like I said before, cities never were Jack’s scene.

“Maxwell the Great was a major success, more so than his–weak predecessor–” she hasn’t missed how much scorn was in those words, but neither does she press it. “-Up until the very thing that gave him success also took him away to… well, here.” His now-free hand gestures to the Constant around them, the starless sky lit only by a sliver of a moon and the unyielding wilderness below it.

“Felled by the very powers that aided you,” she finally comments, “your story is very poetic, Mister Maxwell-”

 _Wendy! Hey Wendy!_ She turns her attention to her deceased sister, Maxwell merely looking between the two girls as they speak (or in Abigail’s case, wail) to each other.

_Dad said his brother died in a train crash right? On the way to us?_

“Yes, but it could have been another-”

 _Just ask if he talked to the guy! Or anyone on the train! Just heard the name even!_ The living sibling sighs in light exasperation at her deceased sibling before looking back to her host.

“I apologize for my sister’s… enthusiasm…” he gives a light snort and shrug, letting her continue. “But she was wondering if anyone was with you after the crash?”

“No, I was the only one. No corpses even.” She nods with a light hum, carefully considering how to word this next.

“Well, were names called out?” 

“A few times, yeah. Why?”

“My father… he didn’t talk of him much, but he used to have a brother. He said he died on his way to our home in a train crash. I-” she pauses, exchanging a quick look with Abby. “We were… hoping perhaps-”

“That perhaps I happened across this brother of his on the train,” he finishes for them, and both girls nod. Now it’s his turn to hum in thought–a noise not unlike Father’s, Wendy notes–before giving a light shrug.

“Eh, heard a few names here and there, so it’s possible,” he admits, turning to stare into the flames again, both hands toying with the king piece now. “What was his name?”

“It was–um…” She falters, looking unsure at Abby, but even her sister does little more than shrug weakly. “We… can’t remember his first name, but it was… something Carter-”

The sound of the chess piece being dropped, clacking against the burning wood, is so sudden that both girls jump, despite one being weightless. The look he’s giving them both–it’s as though she or Abby had just stabbed him, Maxwell’s eyes wide and… fearful?

“W–was it-” a shuddering breath in has Maxwell shutting his eyes before the odd glowing eyes lock on her again. “W–William Carter?”

Wendy nods, and while Abigail cheers next to her– _This is AWESOME, we finally HAVE SOMETHING! Maybe he’s just hiding out somewhere or got caught up in stuff or-_ -she can’t bring herself to look away from Maxwell’s face, that of a man stabbed in the chest, panicked mutterings of a man with regrets. He’s not looking at her now, odd eyes out of focus as he mumbles to himself.

“N-no–no no no, I–I _wrote_ to him, it–this wasn’t across the ruddy country, it couldn’t have–couldn’t have gotten _lost-_ -” A gloved hand is combing through his thin hair, not out of grooming but out of panic, and the realization hits Wendy like a blow to the stomach. He doesn’t just _know_ their uncle…

“… Uncle William?”

She can feel Abigail freeze next to her, the hype and enthusiasm screeching to a halt as the same realization hits her with a quiet _ohhh shit,_ but this time Wendy doesn’t reprimand her. Instead she scoots closer to Maxw–to _William_ , taking his free hand in both of hers to regain his attention. It doesn’t work however, and the hand raking through his hair is slowly gaining speed, fingers no longer just raking through hair but audibly scratching.

“I–did I even see you two, you were–God, you were young but I–God, when you summoned me with that-the seance–Had I known, I wouldn’t have–I didn’t–”

His voice chokes as Abby floats closer, his eyes finally snapping on the two girls.

“I-I didn’t-I–” Wendy moves to stand in front of her uncle, who just stares at her, tears threatening to flood him as his voice chokes on the words.

“I–” He looks away, standing up and walking away; his voice is quiet and still choked, shoulders shaking as he stands with his back to the two girls.

“I think you should go.” The girls look at each other, Abigail ready to object, but Wendy merely turns to leave, pausing to stare at the dawn before looking back at him.

“Good–good night, Uncle W-”

 _“Just **go.** ”_ She flinches at the tone but leaves toward the main camp, ignoring the others’ questions of _‘where were you’_ or _‘why is your knee bandaged’_ …

Ignoring the sob breaking through the former magician.


End file.
